True Grit (the Remake) - Great Western Movies Great Western Movies An In-Depth Guide to Westerns Menu True Grit (the Remake) Nicholas Chennault ~ July 23, 2013 True Grit —Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Dakin Mathews (2010; Dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) “You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don’t have time to think about how many’s with him. He thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that’s about to set down on him.” This line of Rooster Cogburn philosophy wasn’t explicit in the original 1969 True Grit . Many wondered if a remake was necessary, especially with westerns being so out-of-cinematic-fashion and all. But the result has been the Coen brothers’ most profitable movie to date, even taking into account their Oscar winner No Country for Old Men. The Coens’ attempt to return more closely to the original Charles Portis novel is successful on its own terms, even though much of the dialogue sounds familiar.

The outlines of the story are very familiar by now: 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) from near Dardanelles in Yell County, Arkansas, sets out for Fort Smith in search of her father’s killer, only to find he has headed off into the wild and lawless Indian Territory to the west. She hires one-eyed Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), said to be the most ruthless of Judge Parker’s federal marshals, to pursue the killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). They are joined by a dandified Texas ranger, La Boeuf (pronounced “La Beef” and played by Matt Damon), who wants Chaney for a Texas murder. In the end, all three pursuers have demonstrated their own versions of True Grit in battling outlaws, snakes and the elements in their pursuit of Chaney and his new associates. There are various elements that are unchanged from Henry Hathaway’s original film version of the story. If anything, the remake keeps even closer to Portis’ period language and does so quite successfully. The interplay between the three protagonists will seem familiar, if more balanced with a better actor in the La Boeuf role.

The high point of the movie’s action, Cogburn’s one-on-four joust with Lucky Ned Pepper’s gang in a high mountain meadow, remains one of the most compelling sequences in any western. But there are other elements that are even more rewarding in the Coen brothers’ version than they were in the Hathaway movie. The conscientious use of period details and a somber palette of colors in the production design are very thorough and work well with the dialogue. There are upgrades in several of the roles: Hailee Steinfeld in her first film role is magnificent as young Mattie Ross, in a role that could easily just be strident and irritating in the wrong hands, and Matt Damon’s performance as La Boeuf is a marked improvement on non-actor Glenn Campbell’s version of the role. Rather than being a John Wayne vehicle (the original won Wayne his only Best Actor Oscar), this version is much more an ensemble effort. The ending is truer to Portis’ novel.

The music by Carter Burwell, with its theme based on a 19th-century hymn tune (“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” recognizable from 1955’s Night of the Hunter), feels not only authentic but haunting, and lends an elegiac tone to the entire film. The cinematography often makes use of sepia tones to suggest old photographs and natural 19th-century lighting in the wintry setting. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and La Boeuf (Matt Damon) confer on the trail. If anything, making this movie might be harder now than it was in 1969. The Coen brothers suggest that one reason is that rules for filmmaking with horses have become much more stringent in the intervening 40 years. The Coens could throw their 14-year-old lead actress into a freezing river with impunity, but the water had to be at least a certain minimum temperature to do the same with a horse. Among the less persuasive sequences are Rooster and Mattie’s desperate ride for medical help on the floundering Little Blackie.

One reason it’s less effective might be the inability to actually put such stress on an animal, and relying more on sound effects (such as the heavy equine breathing) and editing. The rhythms of the motions of the two riders on the horse don’t seem right in the closeups, and that may be because they weren’t actually on a horse for those shots. Nevertheless, the Old Testament flavor, from the initial scriptural “The wicked flee when no man pursueth…” (Proverbs 28:1), to the narrating Mattie Ross’s comment that a price must be paid for everything in this world save the grace of God, to the older Mattie’s thoughts on Rooster’s final resting place works very well. It gives both the younger and older Mattie a hard and unforgiving edge (not in precisely the same way), which serves her and Rooster well in the hard and unforgiving territory where they must navigate and with the hard and unforgiving men with whom they must deal.

In the end we see not only True Grit on display with the three principals, but the honest affection and regard in which they come to hold each other and the way they have re-shaped the course of each other’s lives, especially young Mattie’s. And there is a slight sadness for the ways in which the course of one’s life turns out to be other than one might have wished. Rooster Cogburn as played by the excellent Jeff Bridges (with the eye patch on the opposite eye from John Wayne) is more enigmatic, just as coarse, harder and, when the chips are down, just as capable and decisive as the earlier Cogburn. Although Bridges didn’t win an Oscar for this role, he was nominated. The supporting roles are well-played, especially Dakin Mathews as the horse trader Col. Stonehill in Fort Smith and Barry Pepper (scarcely recognizable in his woolly chaps, stringy hair and dental prosthetics) as Lucky Ned Pepper, head of the gang with which Chaney falls in. They play roles that were superbly played in the original by Strother Martin and Robert Duvall, and they hold their own.

Josh Brolin has little screen time as Tom Chaney and he seems a bit overly charismatic for someone who is after all just a stupid killer; but he is otherwise excellent in the role. This version of True Grit was a surprise success at the box office. The first $100 million western since the 1990s; it eventually passed Dances With Wolves to become the highest-grossing western ever made. It received ten Academy Award nominations , including Best Picture (although the field for that award had been doubled to ten films beginning the previous year), Best Director for the Coen brothers, Best Actor for Jeff Bridges (even though he’d won for Crazy Heart the previous year and John Wayne had won for the same role 40 years earlier, so chances of Bridges actually winning were minimal), and Best Supporting Actress for Hailee Steinfeld. It was also nominated for Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Roger Deakins’ Cinematography. It didn’t win any of them, defeated mostly by The King’s Speech. Save Save Reuben J. Cogburn | True Grit Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Reuben J.

"Rooster" Cogburn is played by John Wayne in the 1969 film adaption of True Grit and its sequel Rooster Cogburn , by Warren Oates in the made for TV movie True Grit: A Further Adventure and by Jeff Bridges in the the 2010 version of True Grit . Cogburn is a bounty hunter and US Marshal, hired by Mattie Ross to hunt down her father's killer Tom Chaney. Character Biography Edit Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, said to have true grit, was a US Marshall who was hired by Mattie Ross to find her father's killer, Tom Chaney. He has an ex-wife and son. In the remake, his claim of men killed as a US Marshall is 12-15, possibly 23, when testifying in court. In the film he overcomes drunkeness and stubborn pride to bond with Mattie Ross, and eventually destroy most of Lucky Ned Pepper's gang, helping Mattie avenege her farther. Rooster keeps an intenese rivalry with the Texas Ranger La Boeuf . Edit He served with the Confederacy in the American Civil War,1861-1865.

He apparently rode with William Quantrill and "Bloody" Bill Anderson in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas, presumably. Rooster is working with Cole Younger and Frank James's Wild West Show when on August 12th, 1903 he passes away, of some unknown ailment. In the remake his tombstone reveals his birthday as July 15th, 1825. Rooster favors his Colt Navy "Sixes". He is seen using a Single Action Army revolver, and a Winchester Repeater. Relationships Ex-wife Nola, who left Cogburn before the events of True Grit, to re-marry he ex-husband, a hardware salesman. "I said, 'Good-bye, Nola! Hope that little nail-sellin' bastard keeps you happy this time'!" True Grit: Jeff Bridges gets thumbs up in the remake of western but remarkable newcomer Hailee Steinfeld | Daily Mail Online comments It's been one of the most anticipated films of the forthcoming awards season - and now, the first people have had a chance to see the remake of the classic John Wayne western True Grit.

The new version - directed by the Coen Brothers (No Country For Old Men and O, Brother Where Art Thou?) is not released in the U.S until Christmas Day - but cast members attended a special screening of the film in Hollywood on Thursday night. Among those who attended were star Jeff Bridges, who takes over where Wayne left off in the role of one-eyed Marshall Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn. Rooster's back: Jeff Bridges and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld star in the True Grit remake and were among those stars at the screening The 61-year-old - who could be in line for his second consecutive Oscar after winning this year for his role in Crazy Heart - looked laid-back as he posed for photos with newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who also stars in the film. Hailee, 14 - who plays a key role in the film as Mattie, the teenage girl who hires Rooster to avenge her father's death - seemed to be enjoying all the attention. Wearing a short black lace dress and boots, the teenager was all smiles as she was snapped with the stars of the film, as well as veteran actress Kim Darby, who played Mattie in the 1969 original.

New and old faces: Hailee Steinfeld posed with actress Kim Darby, who played her role in the original film while co-star Josh Brolin brought his wife Diane Lane Others who attended the screening included actor Josh Brolin, who stars in the film as bad guy Tom Chaney, and his actress wife Diane Lane. Bridges' actor brother Beau was also among those who watched the film in Beverly Hills. Early reviews of the film have been largely positive, with trade papers Variety and the Hollywood Reporter among those who have already cast their verdict. Brothers in arms: Jeff Bridges' actor sibling Beau was among the other guests at the screening Variety critic Peter Debruge said, 'Bridges pulls off a total physical reinvention, complete with whiskey-stained moustache, rotting underbite and trademark eyepatch. The actor seems to have absorbed the character into his very marrow.' However Hollywood Reporter reviewer Todd McCarthy had some reservations, saying that the film lacked much of the humour which characterised the original and the book on which it is based. He also described Jeff Bridges' performance as 'engaging but not dominant' - with his main praise reserved for Steinfeld.

'Mattie is everything she's meant to be in Steinfeld's exceedingly accomplished performance,' McCarthy said. 'Dark haired and clear-eyed, Steinfeld convincingly conveys the character's refusal to be deterred, without a trace of gamine-like coyness or girlish cuteness.' Elsewhere, critic David Poland on the website Movie City News described Steinfeld's performance as 'remarkable'. The film sees Bridges' character Cogburn hired by Mattie, a stubborn young girl to help track down her father's murderer, Tom Chaney played by Josh Brolin, and avenge his death. The girl insists on accompanying Cogburn, against his wishes, and the pair set out on a journey into the Indian nations. Ross and Cogburn are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, played by Matt Damon, who has ulterior motives for hunting down the unsuspecting killer.

Old drunk: Bridges plays Marshall Cogburn, an aggressive drunk who is hired by a young girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfield) to track down her father's murderer Old timer: John Wayne's character Marshall Cogburn, right, is played by Jeff Bridges in the remake of the 1969 film which won the acting legend an Oscar Director Ethan Coen has previously said that the film will be a more faithful adaptation of the novel than the 1969 version. It focuses more on Mattie's point of view, and as you might expect from the makers of the bloody action film No Country For Old Men - which also starred Brolin - it is more violent. Coen said :'It's partly a question of point-of-view. The book is entirely in the voice of the 14-year-old girl. That sort of tips the feeling of it over a certain way.

True Grit – review | Film | The Guardian The Observer True Grit – review It's harsher and more sombre than the John Wayne version, but the Coen brothers' True Grit is every bit as good Jeff Bridges (Rooster Cogburn) and Hailee Steinfeld (Mattie Ross) in the Coen brothers' True Grit. ‘Mattie gives us something new, a girl who directs the lives of the men reluctantly riding with her.’ Photograph: Lorey Sebastian Saturday 12 February 2011 19.05 EST First published on Saturday 12 February 2011 19.05 EST Share on Messenger Close The Coen brothers' excellent western True Grit is a second and rather different version of Charles Portis's novel, rather than a remake of the 1969 film that brought John Wayne an Oscar as the one-eyed bounty hunter Marshal Rooster Cogburn. Portis's novel, a demotic classic in the tradition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is narrated by Mattie Ross, a prim, Presbyterian spinster looking back from the 1920s to the great adventure of her life.

In 1878, just 13 years after the civil war, she set out at the age of 14 to bring to justice the crooked hired hand Tom Chaney, who murdered her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Although she was well played by the 21-year-old Kim Darby as a perky modern miss in the first film, the picture was dominated by Wayne. A controversial figure at the time, Wayne was loathed by many for his arrogant rightwing politics and the previous year his stridently patriotic The Green Berets had been picketed by anti-war protesters. But he was always popular in westerns, and especially in True Grit, where he was perceived to be mocking the gruff frontier bully he'd been playing ever since his screen persona was reshaped for Howard Hawks's Red River. His Cogburn had a big heart behind his marshal's star and a twinkle in his remaining eye, in his case the right, which may or may not have been making a political point. The Coens restore Mattie's centrality.

First, they've cast the 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, who plays her as a tough frontier farm girl reared on the Protestant work ethic with a firm sense of right and wrong. Her strong, dark eyebrows and carefully braided hair declare her earnestness. Second, their film begins with her speaking the novel's opening paragraph as her father lies dead in the street at Fort Smith, the snow swirling around him as she declares her intention to revenge his blood. This introduces her as controller of her own narrative and establishes the language of the King James Bible that she shares with those around her. Everyone speaks a formal English with no elisions and they delight in carefully rounded phrases and allusions. Arriving on her mission at Fort Smith, the seat of the infamous "Hanging Judge" Isaac Charles Parker, she joins the happy crowd attending a triple hanging. The first two condemned men deliver farewell speeches; the third, an Indian, is interrupted during his first sentence by having the black sack pulled over his head and the hangman pulling the lever. This reflects the film's gallows humour, realism and brutal social commentary. Mattie discovers the wicked Chaney has moved into the Indian Territory, the lawless land that's now the state of Oklahoma.

Though within Judge Parker's jurisdiction, it is for many a no-go area and Mattie needs a man like Cogburn to take her there. In the novel, the local sheriff describes Chaney as being "now over in the territory". The Coens turn this into his having "lit out for the territory", a nod in the direction of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where the phrase occurs in the book's penultimate sentence. Fort Smith is not a welcoming place. The Irish undertaker who has prepared her father's corpse, the proprietress of the hotel where she stays and a sly businessman she must deal with all attempt to take advantage of her age and what they think of as her inexperience. In each case, she manages, amusingly and admirably, to drive a hard bargain. The same proves true of her relationship with the boozy Rooster Cogburn, whom she first addresses while he's closeted in a privy, and first meets when he appears in court explaining how he came to kill several men while bringing them to justice. It's here we first become aware of Roger Deakins's excellent photography. The courtroom in the 1969 film is bland, nondescript.

Now populated by men in dark business suits, it evokes the paintings of Thomas Eakins, the Philadelphia recorder of emerging middle-class life, and represents the bourgeois world that's encroaching on the frontier. This contrasts with the Indian Territory, a place of fear and freedom where Mattie will have her adventure with Cogburn and handsome Texas ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who joins them in the pursuit of Chaney, also wanted for the murder of a Texas politician. Jeff Bridges's Rooster is a wily, duplicitous, self-centred man and, as they journey west, he's revealed to have had a terrible domestic life and a dodgy professional one, first as a member of Quantrill's murderous guerrilla band during the civil war, later as an outlaw. LaBoeuf, on the other hand, is an upright lawman who served with a Virginia regiment in the war. Both, however, are on the trail to perform a job for money. Neither has the dedication and determination that Mattie shows in her quest for justice and family honour.

Traditionally, women in westerns are either golden-hearted whores providing pleasurable company or schoolmarms and homemakers, upholders of decency and determined to civilise their men. Children are there to learn from their role models or be misled by them. Mattie gives us something new, a 14-year-old girl who directs the lives and strengthens the moral resolve of the men reluctantly riding with her. True Grit is a harsher, more sombre film than the Wayne version, the tone chillingly wintry rather than gently autumnal, the music less jaunty, more religious and pastoral. It's also funnier, yet never inviting the description "comic western". The villains, when they eventually appear, are perhaps a little less colourful than those in the 1969 film, and Jeff Bridges's diction lacks Wayne's clarity, though in other ways he's altogether more complex. It also has a brief, moving, beautifully staged epilogue set in 1903 that brings the picture to a satisfying conclusion.

Julian Fellowes's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet proves far more straightforward, if less involving, than Baz Luhrmann's 1990s version, writes Mark Kermode Published: 12 Oct 2013 True Grit (2010) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV A tough U.S. Marshal helps a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer. Directors: a list of 33 titles created 03 Feb 2011 a list of 43 images created 19 Feb 2011 a list of 47 titles created 28 Sep 2013 a list of 29 titles created 21 Apr 2015 a list of 26 titles created 11 Jul 2015 Search for " True Grit " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site?

Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 10 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 148 nominations. See more awards » Videos In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. Director: James Mangold When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.

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Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh Edit Storyline Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.

Written by Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 December 2010 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Temple de acero See more » Filming Locations: $24,850,000 (USA) (24 December 2010) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Rooster refers to LaBoeuf as a "brush popper" and later as a "waddie." Those are American West terms for a cowboy. See more » Goofs When Mattie cuts the hanged man down from the tree and Rooster kicks him over so that he is lying flat on his back, his legs are crossed and his coat is half open. As Rooster stands over the dead man, Rooster's shadow falls behind him, away from the dead man. After the next scene, where the Indian on horseback approaches, no one has touched the dead man, and Rooster is standing in the same place.

But now the dead man's legs aren't crossed anymore, his coat is fully open, and Rooster's shadow falls in front of him, across the dead man's legs. See more » Quotes [first lines] 40-Year-Old Mattie : People do not give it credence that a young girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood. But it did happen. I was just 14 years of age when a coward by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down and robbed him of his life and his horse and two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band. Chaney was a hired man and Papa had taken him up to Fort Smith to help lead back a string of Mustang ponies he'd bought. In town, Chaney had ... See more » Crazy Credits Buster Coen, Ethan Coen's son, is listed in the end credits as "Mr. Damon's abs double". In reality, he was an on-set assistant to the script supervisor.

See more » Connections View All Critic Reviews (50) Audience Reviews for True Grit John Wayne won his one and only Oscar for Best Actor in this exciting and riveting action-packed Western from Director Henry Hathaway that became one of the biggest boxoffice hits of 1969 in a year that was dominated with the return of the Hollywood Westerns that featured "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid",and "The Wild Bunch". "True Grit" casts the legendary John Wayne,in the prime of his career playing Rooster Cogburn,an aging,hard-drinking,foul-mouthed United States Marshal who was once one of the West's best lawman in his prime. A teenage girl(played by Kim Darby)enlists his help in finding and tracking down the men responsible for brutally murdering her father.

Along for the ride and adventure is country music superstar Glen Campbell,who not only sings the movie's theme song,but also makes his theatrical debut in this picture as a devoted and dedicated Texas Ranger who joins the odd couple in finding the killers responsible for her father's death,and bringing them to justice which will be a a task to deal with going against some dangerous desperados,among them Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper,and Bruce Dern. This movie was also Oscar nominated for Best Original Song sung by Glen Campbell. This movie was so successful in 1969 that producer Hal B. Wallis brought John Wayne back in 1975 for the sequel to "True Grit" in the title role of Rooster Cogburn,but this time around screen icon Katherine Hepburn join him for the second installment. In 2010,directors Joel and Ethan Coen did the remake with Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role that was also Oscar nominated for Best Original Adaptation Screenplay. Mister Caple Super Reviewer A fourteen-year-old girl hires and accompanies a grizzled U.S. Marshal on a mission to avenge the death her father.

It's rare that a re-make is better than the original, but the Coen Brothers accomplished more with this story and the characters than its progenitors. As I watched it, I couldn't help comparing the two. Jeff Bridges's Rooster Cogburn had more character, a chatty, damaged drunkard, but John Wayne is all of these things but muted; Bridges is an actor who takes more risks, unafraid to be seen vulnerable. What we don't get with Wayne's performance is any clue about why Rooster is the way he is; he's just the force that John Wayne has always represented. I did like this iteration of True Grit because it's a fine story and the characters are inherently interesting despite how much more fleshed out they are in the Coen Brothers' version. Of all the westerns I've seen, this is one of the least racist (the portrayal of Asians leaves something to be desired), and the tale is full of class tropes of revenge and heroes. It's nothing to think too deeply about, but it's a solid three-star film. Overall, despite the strengths of the original True Grit, if you're only going to see one version of this story, you should see the latest one.

Overall, despi Jim Hunter True Grit: The Remake | Entertaining Angels Entertaining Angels Christianity plus; a personal point of view Menu 2 Replies Review of the 2010 film. Mattie Ross, a teenager with a head for figures goes in search of the man who murdered her father, a nere-do-well called, amongst other names that he uses, Tom Cheyney. Mattie hires the services of an ageing reprobate, US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to take her into the Indian Nation Territory in search of her father’s killer, who is hiding out there. They are joined, somewhat to their initial irritation, by a Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, who has his own ulterior motive for wanting Cheyney. This mismatched trio find danger, surprises and, eventually, mutual respect too, with Mattie ‘winning her spurs’. I am old enough to remember fondly the original True Grit film from 1969, starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn with Kim Darby and Glen Campbell as his co-stars.

When I first saw the 2010 remake I was initially unimpressed, until I realised I was probably making the same mistake that I suspect a lot of other people will have made; comparing the two films instead of judging the later movie on its own merits. I think it likely that people who see the 2010 film without having first watched the original will have a higher opinion of it. Written and ably directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, it is clearly the same story (unlike some remakes which seem to bear no resemblance to the original), and much of the dialogue will be instantly recognisable to those who remember the first film. Where the big difference becomes obvious is in the tone and style of the story telling. The later film is definitely the ‘grittier’ of the two. Jeff Bridges a the ‘fat, old eyepatched lawman’ gives Rooster a darker character, seemingly more in keeping with a hard bitten, slightly jaded hard drinking ‘peace’ officer. He was ably supported by Hailee Steinfeld, as Mattie Ross, who had employed the marshall to track down her father’s murderer. I was somewhat disappointed though by Matt Damon, as the other co-star in the production.

Damon took the part of the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, the role formerly played by Glen Campbell. Whilst both Bridges and Steinfeld brought something new and original to their roles, I did not get the same impression from Damon as LaBoeuf. One thing I don’t understand, is why Hailee Seinfeld did not get higher billing than Josh Brolin, who played the killer Cheyney. Her part was bigger with more screen time and her playing of the role of Mattie perhaps better than Kim Darby, from 1969. She deserved higher billing than she was given (which is why I chose not to use the film poster as the picture with this review). Anyone who has read previous reviews I have penned, might have noticed that I make no bones about writing subjectively. For True Grit 2010 I have made a conscious effort to be objective, so as not to denigrate a fine film by comparison with the 1969 original. Unlike other remakes where improvement often depends on updated technology and better effects, the western genre does not lend itself to that. It is the fine performances that carry this movie. “You must pay for everything in this world, one way and another.

There is nothing free except the grace of God.” – Mattie Ross. P.s. On a purely subjective, personal note I prefer …… Share this: ‘True Grit’: John Wayne vs. Jeff Bridges — which one has more true grit? – EW.com Pinterest Image Credit: Everett Collection; Lorey SebastianIt doesn’t take rocket science to see why True Grit enjoyed the biggest opening weekend of any Coen brothers movie to date. The film may not have won the Coens their most rapturous reviews (though the critics were largely enthusiastic), and it’s hardly their best or most defining work. Yet it’s a remake of a famous and, indeed, iconic Hollywood movie — one that, while not quite a “classic,” remains a robust and beloved end-of-the-studio-system-era Western. OMG, I used the R-word! — I called True Grit a “remake.” The vulgarity, the lowbrow cluelessness on my part!

From the outset, you see, the directorial and studio spin on this movie has been to insist that it’s a completely different animal from the deeply sentimental 1969 when-fresh-faced-teenybopper-met-grizzled-old-marshal fable of popular vengeance. The Coens, making their publicity rounds, have talked and talked about how they went back to Charles Portis’ original novel, which was published in 1968. But if, like me, you’ve never read the novel (and I would guesstimate that 97 percent of the people who saw True Grit over the weekend have not), then after all the remake? what remake?! spin, you might be startled to see how close the movie really does come to the 1969 version. At times, it borders on being a scene-for-scene, line-for-line gloss on it. There are differences, of course. The Coen brothers’ version is more tasteful and intimate and art-directed, a kind of color-coordinated curio.

Hailee Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross is notably younger than Kim Darby’s (which, at times, makes the new Mattie seem even more of an old movie concoction), and major sections of the picture are set at night (a technique that worked a lot better in No Country for Old Men). That said, the essential hook of the new True Grit is, and always was, the sheer curiosity factor of wanting to see Jeff Bridges, in his born-again middle-aged movie-star prime, take on the role of Rooster Cogburn, the part that won John Wayne his only Academy Award. There’s a reason that a great many people still don’t hold Wayne’s cornball-crusty performance in very high esteem. By the late ’60s, movies were in the middle of a revolution, and they had a new audience, known (it now sounds so quaint) as the Film Generation. At the time, a lot of folks under a certain age felt that it was almost their duty to hate John Wayne. He’d become the living embodiment of the Old Values.

He was a saber-rattling conservative who, only the year before, in 1968, had pushed his pro-Vietnam hawkishness to the nth degree in the jarringly jingoistic The Green Berets. He had every right to, of course. But what made The Green Berets, as a corrective to Hollywood liberalism, so infamous and despised is that it was such a didactically wooden combat movie. All that came through, really, was the propaganda. And this reinforced the notion that Wayne, though he remained the most larger-than-life of all Hollywood movie stars, was never, in the fullest sense, an actor. He had come to be seen as the macho cartoon version of himself: the arms-out swagger, the slow-motion molasses drawl, the toughness that never wavered. True Grit, the movie that finally won Wayne his Oscar, was transparently one of those movies designed to win an old warhorse legend his Oscar. Here he was — or so the rap went — running through his rawhide-cowboy shtick, only this time with the added gimmick of an eye patch and an attitude.

As if to make him seem even more outdated, True Grit was released within a week of The Wild Bunch, the apocalyptic New Hollywood Western in which director Sam Peckinpah, spattering blood and bullets and doom, exploded the mythology of six-gun heroism that John Wayne incarnated. If you love movie-star acting, however, do yourself a favor: Get a hold of the original True Grit and watch it. Because what you’ll see is that John Wayne’s performance is a marvel. He makes Rooster Cogburn a cantankerous old cuss, a kind of cowpoke precursor to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry — the kind of law enforcer who never met a bad guy he didn’t like to shoot. Wayne’s Rooster lives by a code, all right, but the movie suggests that he’s trapped by it as well. In one of the key scenes that’s more or less duplicated in the Coen brothers version (though to far less emotional effect), he talks about his past, including his wrecked marriage, and we see that he’s the sort of “noble” loner who’s really a broken-down, half-dead codger.

Killing bad guys isn’t just his mission — it’s the major thing that’s keeping him alive. At the same time, he’s an irresistible rascal whose one-eyed squint becomes a wink of valor. Forty years later, Wayne’s performance has aged beautifully, because it’s easier to see now how much acting there really is in it. There is one moment, though, that almost by definition can’t match the power it had back in 1969: When Wayne’s Rooster, just before the famous, climactic, reins-in-his-mouth shoot-out, growls out the line “Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!”…there’s simply no way to recapture how funny-edgy, and even shocking, it once was to hear John Wayne, apostle of American values, spit out an epithet like that. The glory of it, of course, is that the real son-of-a-bitch was Rooster. And how does Jeff Bridges do? The consensus seems to be: pretty well. And I would agree.

He’s winningly gruff, he looks fine and nasty in that grizzly beard, he’s got the body language of “Saddle-Sore Old Drunken Law Enforcer” down pat, and he wears that eye patch as if he’d never once taken it off in 15 years. To me, though, Bridges’ performance lacks the raw magic of Wayne’s, because it rarely, if ever, surprises you. After a while, that croak of his gets a little bit samey. This has something to do with the fact that Bridges, as great an actor as he is, has something of an inner Teddy Bear quality. He’s cuddly and humane, even when playing a crank like Rooster; we warm up to the character almost too quickly. More than that, though, I wish that the Coen brothers, in creating their 2010 version of Rooster Cogburn, had departed from the book and made him a touch wilder — given him, say, not just a missing eye but a missing limb, something (anything) to suggest that he’s not just Mattie’s crusty savior but one hellacious, damaged dude.

If they’d done that, their True Grit would have been not only grittier but something that the first movie is and this movie may not be: memorable. So where do you stand on the two Rooster Cogburns? Which one has more true grit? Which actor, in the end, gives a better performance — the Duke or the Dude? Or am I wrong to even suggest that there should be a contest between them? Show Full Article

Question: Who played Rooster Cogburn in the remake of the film 'True Grit'?
Answer: JEFF BRIDGES